Nokia Asha 501 goes official, brings new Asha platform

Stephen Elop just announced the new Nokia Asha 501 on the stage of the Nokia press in India. Itís the first product of the new generation Ashas with a brand new platform. The design is inspired by Lumia and Nokia picked red as the signature color.

The new Asha platform is based on the SmarterPhone acquisition Nokia made a few years ago. The new interface focuses on swipe events and a new feature called Fastlane.

Nokia Asha 501

The Nokia Asha 501 is made of only two parts to make it more durable and cheaper to manufacture. The back is removable to access the microSIM, the pre-installed 4GB microSD card (up to 32GB supported) and the battery.

The phone packs a 3" QVGA capacitive touchscreen on the front (133ppi), it supports two finger multitouch. On the back, there's 3.2MP fixed-focus camera.

The new Asha platform is a grandchild of the MeeGo OS. The phone wakes up with a double tap. It features two home screens - one is Fastlane, the other one is the app drawer.

The Nokia Asha 501 focuses on 2G connectivity as large parts of emerging markets still rely on the slow mobile Internet. There are two apps to help with that - the Xpress browser compresses traffic and Xpress Now that recommends content based location, preferences and trending topics. Also, a partnership with Facebook and Airtel ensures people can access the social network for free, even without a data plan (this will be for a limited time only).

o ..WHAT A COINCIDENCE.!! iz reply is done on 22/11/13 and it clearly meanz we are not in the next year :) ..
Nokia has got a new update as well as all the appz including " whazzapp ., wechat and line are working fine now..!! :D"
If you...